Denial, Rage, Rice Crackers, Acceptance
by MadRabbit
Summary: The four stages of grief.  There is a monster in the apartment above Zoro's.  That's bad enough, but then there's the call from Japan…the damned prank call from Japan…  AU, rated T for language.  No pairings.


**Usually, I don't swear. But it's the characters, not me, and it's from Zoro's point of view, and he wanted to swear, so I let him. Moving on!**

**This is an excuse for me to use _waaaaaay _too much Italics and slap a random character trait on Zoro. Also, Sanji is hot. That said, carry on.**

* * *

There is a monster in the apartment above Zoro's.

He doesn't know who lives up there, but they must have some kind of devil in them, because every night at precisely ten o'clock, the most _godawful _din starts up. And _stays _up. All damn night long. Thumping and clattering and yelling, and some staticky, sticky music that has to be from the eighties or something. It's like torture.

He hasn't done anything about it yet, though.

Why is that?

"It's because you're a masochist," says Kuina over the phone the next day.

"Come back to America," says Zoro, who knows neither of them have the cash to arrange this. Besides, she's happy in Japan. He envies her.

"You're bad at changing the subject. _Oyasumi_, Zoro. It's nine o'clock over here and I've had a very long day."

"Hn," says Zoro. "I don't speak Japanese, you know."

She's already hung up.

It's true, of course, technically.

He _is _a masochist.

Ah, stop thinkin' like that—no whips or any crap like that. It's not like he seeks it out. But he remembers breaking his wrist when he was fifteen, binding it up with a strip of his shirt and his belt. No official doctor's attention until a week later.

"_Whoa! Hoo. Geez." _Breathing between his teeth, feeling out the damaged bones. _"Yeah."  
_And it's not like he _enjoys _it, either. It's just the knowledge that he can endure it—now _that's _a high.

So, actually, it's not technically masochism.

"Shit, _yes_, it _is_!" says Curly-brow later. "You're messed up, Watermelon."  
"Eh? No, idiot, I just told you, _I don't like pain. _This is about the creep in the apartment above mine!"

"I happen to know a dominatrix."

"Not surprised," growls Zoro, flapping one hand at the cook. "Rice. _Hot _rice and beer. Lots of it. Tell your friend anything and we'll find out who's top dog. I have swords in my closet."

"So kill the loud shithead upstairs with them," snaps Sanji, slapping a plate of plain white rice on the counter. "Don't come whining to _me _with your problems."  
"_Whining_?"

"About Miss Kuina and her allegations—which are true, and by the way, you don't deserve her—"

"I don't _have _her," Zoro cuts in belligerently.

"—and the guy upstairs. Neither of which are my problem." He tosses a bottle of beer at Zoro, who catches it with ease. "_Bon app__é__tit._"

The sarcasm is not lost on Zoro. He finishes his meal and leaves.

000

That night at ten, when the muffled eighties music starts up, Zoro plugs in his ancient CD player, the one with the huge speakers, and belts Captain Kidd death metal at the ceiling. After a while, the ruckus upstairs quiets down, and Zoro waits another five minutes to make sure. Then he settles down under his covers and switches off Eustass Kidd's brutally tuneless vocals.

"That guys been known to make eardrums burst!" This is Nami, later. Her apartment smells of citrus and roses (from Sanji, of course).

"I didn't have it turned up _that_ loud," Zoro grumbles, and downs another shotglass. It's eight in the morning and they're trying to drink each other under the table.

"No—" She refills, gulps the beer down, waits for him to do the same. "—I mean, in concert. People bleeding around their earplugs. Nasty stuff."

Refill, drink, wait. "Rumors," he says.

"Zoro, you waste too much time trying not to be gullible."

"Hn. Oi, Devil woman."  
No reply. She drinks. He follows suit, then continues. "I need more money."  
She raises one ginger eyebrow. "'Zat so? Late for rent again? Do you have _any _idea how far into debt you are already?"

He shrugs. "Come to a point where you're so deep in, you don't care if you're getting deeper."

"So, wait, you're not planning to pay me back?" She _really _looks like a devil now, all fiery hair and glaring brown eyes. "That's like _sharing_!" And she spits out the word like it's a curse.

"No, because you've got me under your thumb for every little favor you need," says Zoro, and takes another shot. "Money, Witch."

She snorts viciously, stands, and disappears to another room for a moment. Then she returns, tossing a sheaf of bills at him. "No interest. You really are a masochist; Captain Kidd and borrowing from _me. _You little bastard."

"Yeah, whatever." He doesn't bother to as whether she's been talking to the Dirty Cook. Obviously, she has—Sanji hates Zoro, and he'd tell Nami just about _anything_.

000

"That's enough," says the landlord, flicking through the bills. Zoro tries not to cough, squinting through clouds of smoke thick enough to halfway-hide the man's scowling face.

"Now, I have a complaint from Room 25…"

Zoro wonders if he's beaten up someone's relative again.

"He says you're interrupting his music."  
It takes him a moment to understand, but when he does, rage is immediate and intense. "Are you screwing around here? _He's _the one playin' crappy oldies in the middle of the damn night! I haven't slept for three days!"

Smoker stares back at him, unimpressed. "You never complained about it. He did."

"Well, I've complained now, haven't I?"

A long stare. "He pays his rent."

"_I_—"

"_Regularly._"

Zoro swallows. Smoker has him there. _But… _"But—"

"Oh, get _out_."

"You—"

"Out of my room, Roronoa, or out of the building."

Out of the room.

000

"_Shiiit_," drawls Sanji, exhaling the profanity as a stream of smoke. "Good thing you didn't keep going, or you'd probably have come running here for room and board."

"Like hell!" Zoro takes another bite of rice. Like _hell _he'd go to the Baratie. No, he'd head for Japan, get the money for it somehow…

"Hey, I hear your landlord has some cute chick living in his space."

"Don't think so, Dirty Cook."  
"I mean, I don't know what she looks like, but the rumor say—"

"I don't listen to rumors and I try to stay away from that gray-haired bastard as much as possible. I'm taking this to go." He waves the beer bottle in Sanji's face, and then turns to walk out.

"Fine, but don't forget to recycle it."

"Yeah, whatever." Only because Robin told Sanji she was going green… She's too damn devious to care about the environment, and Zoro's _sure _she's not as nice as she's tryin' to act.

000

That night.

Ten o'clock.

Zoro covers his face with a pillow and swears loudly into its absorbent cushiness.

There is a monster in the apartment above his.

000

The call from Japan…the damned _prank call _from Japan…

"Some bastard thought it would be funny to tell me something about…something about Kuina."

Curly-brow is cleaning dishes. Zoro is drying—he needs the extra change—but his mind is nowhere near the plates under his hands. He's still replaying the message in his head, memorizing every fluctuation of tone…

"What did they say, then?" Sanji's distracted, scraping away at a sauce-encrusted pot. "Does she have a new boyfriend or something?"

He doesn't have the patience for this. "Said she was _dead_," Zoro grates out, putting his shoulder into drying off a gleamingly clean pan. "Said something about a—a _fall_ or something." It's already dry, no trace of washing-water left on it. "Like _she_ would _fall_. Kuina's always in control."

Sanji is staring. "Watermelon-head."

"That _bastard._"

"You—"

Zoro throws the pan on the tiled floor with all his strength, and for a moment the earsplitting clamor drowns him out. "—thing's still greasy, y'damn Dirty Cook!"

A swathe of black—Sanji's bare arms, swinging under rolled-up shirtsleeves—and a foot sinks into Zoro's gut. When the Baratie kicks you out, they _kick you out_. Zoro feels the lowest rib in his left side crack under the blow, and then he's through the door. Sanji's out after him, and though they've fought a hundred times, it's like the cook's really out to k—

"You _shitty idiot_!"

_Crunch_ in the chest, the arm, the shin, but Zoro's standing. "What the _hell _was _that _for?"

"Miss Nami was _right_!" Zoro catches this kick on his arm, and tries a punch, but his fist only grazes Sanji's shoulder; his aim's off. "So _stuck _on not being taken in that you can't even—"

"I tell you about a damn prank call and you—think—she's—_dead_?" This punch lands. Right in the nose, and Zoro feels it break under his knuckles. They stagger away from each other, Zoro grasping his side and sucking in air through clenched teeth. Sanji glares, eyes wet, then sniffs once and spits blood in the swordsman's face.

"Get out. Get out of here, you bastard. And don't come back."

000

When he gets home, hideously sore and sick, the freak upstairs is already partying. And Zoro lies in bed, savoring endurance. It's the feeling of not screaming from the agony of a fractured rib.

He's in control now.

There are sixteen messages on his phone. He deletes them one by one, and then jerks the plug from the outlet as it begins to ring again. Persistent joker, this one.

He sleeps on his left side.

000

There's neither beer nor rice the next day. Zoro has enough change from dishwashing to buy poptarts at the convenience store, so he does. Because it's his money anyway, and borrowing from Nami would mean talking to Nami. And Nami knows about last night, because it was _Sanji_.

The poptarts are greasy, and his toaster hasn't worked for years, so he eats them cold and cloyingly sweet. That's breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It hurts to breathe, so he breathes deeper, because he's not afraid of it—no more than he's afraid of Curly-brow.

Around noon, Nami turns up. She knocks and yells and swears at his locked door for a surprisingly long time before vanishing, and in her absence, Zoro drinks tap water and pretends it's beer. This miserable piece of serenity is interrupted all too soon, though, when Nami comes back. And this time she has Usopp with her.

"_Say something!"_

"_Nami! Say what? You know he's got swords in there? He'll kill me if I try and—"_

"_Look, I tried to get his landlord up here, but the man's as stubborn as Sanji holding open a door!"_

A pause.

"…_Nami."_

"_Fine, maybe not _that _stubborn, but he says it's not his business and he's not moving."  
_Well, Smoker's gone and been helpful for once. Shocking. Zoro looks around for some way to rig up a still and, more importantly, something _to _distill. He may be here for a while.

He sits down to wait for them to leave on the grimy linoleum of his kitchen, legs crossed, square across from the apartment door. After an awkward throat-clearing, Usopp starts talking.

"_Look, Zoro, uh…I guess it's gotta be hard to, uh, take in what's happening here. But there's no reason someone would call you from all the way in Japan, and you'll just go crazy if you stay in denial. Accidents happen."_

Not to her. She was better than me. Better than anyone. Don't be stupid, Usopp. Don't listen to them.

"_You should hear the messages through."  
_Deleted 'em.

"_Look, Zoro…" _The voice trails off, becomes quieter, aimed at someone else. Fortunately, Zoro has excellent hearing. _"Nami, this is freakin' me out! I'm no good at this and he _ain't _gonna answer!"_

"_Keep trying, dammit! I'm here to support you!"_

"_Oh, _big _comfort."_

"Talk, _Long-nose!"_

Usopp talks. And keeps talking. After a while Zoro starts blocking the words from his mind. Things get repeated, mixed up, and occasionally, Usopp's voice cracks painfully. This annoys Zoro, because, obviously, there's no reason to be upset. Because she's _not dead_.

When night begins to set in, Usopp starts losing his voice. Zoro can respect him for his doggedness, but after a while, the liar really can't talk anymore, and Nami leaves with her cohort, promising a second attempt the next day.

Whatever. Soon, they won't be so worked up anymore. He yawns and stretches (both actions induce excruciating pain) and meanders over to the telephone. He regards it critically for a moment, then re-plugs it. The caller must be finished by now.

Almost immediately, it starts ringing again. Zoro considers his chances as it chimes four times, and then snatches it up before the fifth one can finish.

"Hey. Who's this?"

It's not the same voice as before—that one was nasal and self-conscious, a teenager. This one is familiar, light and comforting. Zoro relaxes against a wall, relieved to finally hear from someone who will tell him the truth.

"Master! It's been a while. Look, I've been getting these calls all day and last night—"

"…Yes. I had forgotten…you don't know student Morimoto. So I took over the phone some time ago."

Some part of him knows. Some part of him is already crying and convulsing in anguish. But he doesn't want to think it, refuses to accept it.

"…Master?"  
The older man's voice has always been perfectly calm, and it remains so. But there is the slightest heaviness behind the hideous words.

Master Koushiro tells him the truth.

Kuina is dead.

000

The full comprehension of this takes some time to set in. Life is dull, gray, and a little confusing. It's like being stuck in a slow-motion action scene, with someone about to punch you, and you _know _it's coming, but it takes so long for that fist to split open your face…

_Sanji's _face is still bruised, his nose a little crooked. He allows Zoro into the Baratie, but he's not speaking to anyone but Nami and Robin. Nami is surprisingly sympathetic, and Robin, to her credit, has resisted smiling that creepy smile of hers for over a week now.

Zoro's still sure she's just pretending.

Every day he drinks his beer and eats his rice, and every night he stares at the ceiling, listening to the monster upstairs and waiting for the punch to connect.

When it finally hits him, he's riding the elevator to his floor and trying to ignore some cheesy pop song playing from the speaker above him. There's a bag of groceries under one arm, courtesy of Nami making Sanji be nice to him. Zoro doesn't need groceries, only beer and scraps. But the devil-woman looks about ready to slaughter him if he didn't take them, so…

On the speakers, the pop singer changes keys—

-and it all comes crashing down.

Zoro never can explain this. He himself is a decent singer, but when it comes to musical appreciation, he's frankly shit. And yet…

Everything seems to go…empty. He'd like to say he didn't cry then, but he doesn't remember. He _does _remember muttering, _"Damn"_ just as it happened, and then everything turns into a cold blur and it's just…empty.

He lived normally for a week before it hit, despite wounds that should have immobilized him. Well, now they have a chance to heal, because moving is just too much worthless effort. Eating's a pain. Drinking's a necessary evil. He turns up Captain Kidd and lets it hammer out of a pair of big, old-fashioned headphones. Maybe he's hoping to make his ears bleed.

They don't. But the partial deafness that comes with it is extremely convenient. Usopp's nearly inaudible now. He and Nami started coming back a couple of days after Zoro locked himself in his apartment again.

They're even less helpful than usual. One day, Zoro makes the mistake of telling them that he can't hear them. The next morning, his radio and headphones are gone, and he systematically breaks each of his Kidd albums on the floor.

Man had no sense of pitch, anyway.

A couple of days later, rage sets in. He just sits up in bed, ribs throbbing, and feels it burning inside him. He starts quietly, standing up and pacing through the kitchen, where he fills a glass of water with shaking hands.

"…_didn't deserve it." _Zoro takes a sip, exhales, tries to cool down, but a moment later the cup's shattered on the floor, and he's yelling at the top of his lungs—blaming everyone and everything for this hellhole his world just walked into. He storms through the apartment, feet and fists colliding with everything within reach. A cabinet door—_CRACK, _it's broken—a chair—he heaves it at the table, and it bounces off with a clang and a scratch, flying on to leave a hole in the drywall.

A broken bowl, a smashed lamp, all the drawers in the apartment scattered on the floor, their contents sprawled around them. He tears down the blinds, throws the mangled remains at the far wall, and smashes through the window, putting all his wrath behind the blow. Shards of glass stick in his skin, and he can hear yelling outside the door now.

Usopp and Nami are here.

Screw them.

"Go _AWAY_!" he bellows, and it's the work of a moment in his fury-fever to barricade the door with the threadbare sofa. His hand itches fiercely where the glass pierced it, but he ignores it, wrecks the kitchen looking for a knife.

Here's one, dull and unused. Good enough. Zoro attacks the walls, the appliances, and any furniture he can get his hands on. He never considers putting it to himself. He's not that kind of masochist.

He's spent himself by the time Smoker opens the door by brute force, and he barely even hears any of the ear-splitting tirade. A few words come through, though.

_Pay for this by next week, or else._

Well, who damn well _cares _anymore? Zoro shrugs, which unleashes another storm of enraged threats. He waits for the landlord to finish and stomp off, then sinks onto his ruined bed, coughing in the lingering smoke.

At ten, the music starts.

_She's dead._

Feet stomp. The tune's old, but he couldn't give you an exact decade.

_She's not coming back._

The introduction's muffled, but even through the ceiling, he can make out the painfully cheerful verses.

_I'll never talk to her again. _It's a weird, alien thought.

"_I couldn't sleep at all last n…"  
Never see her again, not even her body—can't pay fare to get to a ceremony in Japan._

"…_st thinkin' of you…"_

_How wrong is that?_

"_Baby…weren't right…"_

_Damn wrong. Too damn bad._

"…_was tossin' and turnin'_

_Turnin' and tossin'."_

Feet clatter and thump; Zoro thinks he hears a whooping noise.

_Bastard._

"_Tossing and turning all night!"_

_Shut up._

"…_the blankets on the floor…"_

_Shut up she's dead shut up you idiot bastard SHUT UP!_

He swings upright in bed, ribs pounding at his skin like they're trying to break out, and strides towards the door. He stubs his toe on one leg of the sofa and nearly trips over the doorframe, but now he's out in the light of the hallway. He's lived here for three years and still can't remember which way the elevator is, but he runs across it eventually, still seething, and goes hunting for Room 25.

It's immediately clear from the noise which room he wants. It takes at least a minute of furious knocking to get the occupant to the door, but whoever it is doesn't waste time asking who's there.

"Oh, hey!" says the monster. He's about a foot shorter than Zoro, with bright black eyes and shaggy black hair. He's wearing a dorky straw hat and tasseled jeans under shorts. Inside the apartment lava lamps and psychedelic rugs boggle the eyes. There's a disco ball hanging from the ceiling, and that _music _is blaring out of one corner.

"Shut that crap off," growls Zoro, clenching his right hand until the nails bite into his palm. The young man, who looks more like a boy, just grins a shockingly white smile.

"Come hang out!"

"Look, you little piece of—"

"He's already gone into the room, and Zoro follows, about ready to break another nose. Then, suddenly, Room 25 tenant reappears, carrying a huge, steaming platter of fish.

"I'm not good at cooking, but they've got a lot of good salt on them! And I got these rice cakes Shanks gave me, too!"

Zoro opens his mouth to protest, one hand raised to knock the plate out of the other guy's hands, but instead he finds himself holding one of the fish. Instinctively, he shoves the meat in his mouth, sucking on his burning fingers and glaring death at the boy.

"Good, idnit?"  
It _is _good. Zoro swallows, nodding grudgingly. Then he remembers why he's here, and pulls the anger back into himself.

"Look, dammit, you're keeping me awake! Just take your damn dance party somewhere e—"

"Why sleep?" asks the kid. "I'm Luffy."

"Zoro," says Zoro reflexively, momentarily nonplussed by this non sequitur. Then he hates himself for introducing himself. "I—you—because humans _need to sleep_, you little freak!"

Luffy hands him another fish, apparently unfazed by the insult. Zoro bites into it.

"Y'got a job?"

"No," says Zoro, taking another fish for himself. He really is extremely hungry.

"Y'do important things all day?"

"…No."

Luffy grins. "Why sleep? At night, anyhow."

"Because," says Zoro around a mouthful of meat, "there's nothing else in the world worth doin'." His voice turns down into a weary monotone as he speaks.

"So hang here'n eat fish," says the kid.

So Zoro does. He doesn't have anything else to do. And, really, it _is _good fish. And the rice crackers aren't bad either.

After that, midnight meals in Monkey D. Luffy's hippie haven become a regular thing. And, strangely, things get…better.

He starts listening to Usopp when he comes by, and after a week he's out cleaning up a coupla thugs for Nami. He does sword katas in the mornings for the first time in months, and Sanji's back to talking like his usual self. Neither of them apologizes.

Robin, of all people, pays for the damage to his apartment, which he tries to refuse at first because he's already deep enough in debt _elsewhere. _But apparently, she has "sources", and it will be "no difficulty" to "refund" elsewhere. He replies to this with a grunt of acknowledgment and a brusque "go ahead". Shifty woman.

The weird thing is, Luffy sticks around. He's there when Nami's mom is shot by a mob boss, and Zoro drags the devil woman kicking and screaming to Room 25. He's on the floor, knock-kneed and groaning, when the door opens, but Nami's protests are soon lost, just as Zoro's were.

Luffy is there when Usopp's ladyfriend Kaya is cheated out of everything she owns. They turn up one night looking for Smoker, but he's out on official cop business, and Nami brings them both in to listen to The Beatles and drink hot chocolate.

And when some punk gang blows a hole in the Baratie, Sanji comes looking for someone's head to kick in (namely, Zoro's), and finds him chilling with the monster upstairs. He cooks better fish than Luffy, and Luffy lets him stay, in spite of Zoro's belligerent protests.

The _really _weird thing is that all of these things seem to work out in the end—as well as they can, anyway. Nothing can bring Kuina or Nami's mom back, but Zoro wins a damn _lottery ticket _with just enough on it for a round trip to Japan, where he attends his best friend's funeral. Arlongs headquarters in the museum uptown gets a beatdown two weeks after Bellemere's death (not that Zoro knows _anything_ about that), and Smoker arrests the bastard before sending Usopp and Kaya to Hina, the most vicious legal attorney he knows. And this company called Galley-la just turns up one day on an anonymous call to fix the Baratie.

So all in all, the world's alright again, in a screwed-up way…until Zoro runs into Smoker's new assistant in the hallway.

But that's another story, with a whole lot more yelling in it.

* * *

**No, that is _not _hinting at ZoTa. He's not going to get together with the woman who looks like his dead friend. Would _you_?**

**But I promise not to rant about that right now. Please review, should you have the time and patience, and tell me if there are any spelling mistakes, because I typed this out of a notebook and wasn't looking at the screen half the time. "Tossin' and Turnin'" lyrics are not mine! But it _is _a good song, good for dancing, and if you go listen to it, you'll understand how annoying it would be to have that cheeriness blasted at you when you're in a state of depression. **

**Anyway, I have a complaint to make.**

**I think there's...maybe _two _fics that are _just _about Smoker. Ninety percent of them are SmoAce, and disregarding my views on said pairing, there need to be some new stories that simply showcase the awesomeness that is him, without romance. Because, I mean, _dude_! And most recent chapter; a transfer to G5, rumored to be a very troublesome Marine outpost... I want to see him whip some punks into shape! Just a pity we don't get more of him in canon.**


End file.
